A Hobbit at the End of the Shadow
by Sirabella
Summary: COMPLETE. A companion piece that precedes The Peace of Ithilien. How Gandalf and Pippin met again in Ithilien.


Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Gandalf, Pippin, Aragorn, Gimli, Frodo and Sam don't belong to me, and neither do any other people, places or things mentioned in this story. Luckily for them, they belong to the marvelous imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien and also to New Line Cinema.  
  
  
  
  
  
Gwaihir landed on the soft grass without a sound, and Gandalf hurriedly swept off his back and pulled the two unconscious hobbits to either shoulder, settling down in the soft moss under a nearby tree. He could only watch over them until Aragorn came, and he tried to make them as comfortable as possible. He looked first at Sam's worn face, studying the rough curves of his cheeks that were twisted with suffering, but ennobled in sleep by some recent joy. He lifted a hand to the curly head and turned to look at the hobbit splayed against his other side. Dear Frodo..... the poor lad was clutching one hand in his sleep, and with a sudden shock of horror, the wizard realized that Frodo's ring finger was missing, and the hand was caked with blood. Gandalf's free hand was trembling violently as it reached to caress the hobbit's hollow cheek. A shiver of pain wracked Frodo's body at the touch, and the wizard tightened his arm around the shaking figure. 'Frodo,' he thought, reaching with his mind to offer comfort through the bars of sleep, 'you're safe now, my dear boy. Come back. I will not lose you to darkness.' Neither one stirred, and Gandalf sighed. He sat for many hours, watching the hobbits sleep as the sun rose steadily up.  
  
Suddenly, a tall shadow fell on his lap, reaching across Frodo's leg onto the bank. Aragorn was standing there, grief and joy together scrawled across his features. "Give them to me, Gandalf," he begged earnestly. "There is another who wishes to see you now. I have been half-mad with worry, and so has Gimli, though he would rather suffer his cousin Balin's fate than admit anything of the sort."  
  
Gandalf gently handed Sam and Frodo into Aragorn's arms and answered: "I see now the justice of the many complaints I endured during our journey about speaking in riddles, King of Gondor. Will you tell me your meaning, or will you have me spend the next age of this world trying to determine it?"  
  
Aragorn laughed, and the glad sound echoed unfamiliarly through the forest. "That is not necessary, my friend." Then sobering quickly, he uttered one word: "Pippin."  
  
The wizard stood quickly, and grabbing up his staff, strode away into the trees. He had seen the youngest hobbit fall beneath the troll on the Cormallen fields, but he had been so pressed and worried for Frodo and Sam that he had almost immediately pushed him from his mind. But now worry plagued him once more, and he struggled to remember whether Aragorn had said anything about how Pippin was faring. He found the hobbit curled in a makeshift bed, snoring softly, with Gimli standing watch over him. "Gimli," Gandalf called, and the dwarf turned around, relieved.  
  
"Gandalf," he greeted, "it is good to see you returned from battle unscathed. After all that has happened to the little ones, I was unsure when and how you would return."  
  
"None of us are quite unscathed, Master Dwarf," Gandalf answered sadly, his gaze shifting to the sleeping hobbit. "How is he?"  
  
"He is no longer in danger," Gimli answered with a suspicious tremor in his gruff voice, "but he has not regained consciousness since I brought him from the battlefield. I know Aragorn would not have left him if he had not deemed it safe."  
  
"True, my friend," Gandalf agreed, "although the King has other hobbits to attend to at the moment. You should rest or take some refreshment. I will sit here with Peregrin." The dwarf nodded, and turning swiftly away, made for the other side of the encampment. Gandalf sat in Gimli's vacated place and rested a hand on Pippin's smooth forehead, which was hot and damp with the remnants of fever. He cursed fiercely under his breath. Of all the little ones, he had prayed to the Valar that this one would be spared. Perhaps Gandalf's attachment to Frodo was the strongest, but little Pippin had captured the wizard's heart in his own mischievous way, and he had been the only one of the four whose innocence had been quite unblemished. Gandalf scarcely recognized the small, playful boy in this brown and careworn warrior, dressed in the livery of the soldiers of Gondor. He brushed his hand further back along Pippin's temple, gathering the straying curls and holding them back from the flushed forehead.  
  
The hobbit stirred at the soft touch, and gradually, his eyes opened. "Gandalf," he breathed. "We are not on the battlefield. Have we won?"  
  
Gandalf laughed at the simple question that yet held all of their destinies and those of all good peoples in its answer. "Yes, Pippin," he whispered, "we have prevailed against the Shadow. And you have not failed to match Meriadoc in courage. Aragorn has only just managed to bring back the life that was crushed out of you at Cormallen." Pippin sniffed a little at the mention of those last moments of awareness, and the wizard frowned, sensing that there was something else troubling him. He shifted his robes and sat down on the bed at Pippin's side, then slowly drew his small companion into his lap. Pippin instinctively clutched at the flowing beard, until Gandalf groaned in discomfort and lifted the questing hands away, letting them tangle instead in his shining robes. "Will you tell me what is wrong, lad?"  
  
Pippin stiffened a little, and said nothing for a few moments. Then he lowered his gaze and asked painfully: "Do you think me a hopeless mischief, Gandalf?"  
  
Gandalf smiled, but let it fade quickly as Pippin's eyes returned to his face. "Yes and no, Peregrin. A mischief you may have been at times, and not infrequently, but those times were what kept hope alive, for many of us. You were the picture of what we should have to look forward to, if we kept on and did not give in to the darkness. For those among us whose tasks were wavering and being devoured by doubt, you were the certainty."  
  
Tears of delight sparked in Pippin's eyes at these gentle words, and he laughed happily, before a slight frown again creased his brows. "I felt horrible constantly, Gandalf, all the way from Moria until Merry and I saw you, before you brought the others to Isengard. I could only think that if it had not been for my stupidity, you would not have fallen on the bridge of Khazad-Dum."  
  
"Banish that thought from your mind, Peregrin Took," said Gandalf sternly. "Many factors led to that moment, not the least of which was pure evil, not to mention the stupidity of the dwarves in disturbing the earth to begin with, and it was no more your fault than it was mine." One of the wizard's hands continued to stroke the curly head as he spoke, and the other solidly gripped Pippin's shoulders. He suddenly fixed the hobbit with a piercing gaze and asked knowingly: "Is this all that troubles you?"  
  
Pippin sighed and slumped back down into the comforting embrace. "No," he answered truthfully. "Back there, on the battlefields..... I wanted to die. I wanted the silence and the blackness to sweep me far away." Pippin felt Gandalf's forearms pull him sharply back with the shock of these words, and he did not dare look into the wizard's face. He could feel the barely restrained anger bubbling dangerously behind the beautiful white fabric where peace and safety had rested only a moment before, and he was afraid. Would Gandalf never have done being angry with him? He yelped with fright. "Gandalf, don't," he cried tearfully, "please, don't be angry anymore. But Merry, I wanted him to be there, and he wasn't. And I didn't know what had become of him. I wanted us to die together, since death was the fate we were bound to share. And *Frodo*....." Pippin was sobbing now, quaking like a kitten in a cold wind.  
  
"Frodo will be all right, Pippin," came the wizard's voice, as calm now as sweet honey, and as full of compassion and concern as it had been of fury the moment before. "And Meriadoc is safe in the city. Or he was, when the battle was raging. He will be here soon, I am sure. Faramir is not likely to tarry in Minas Tirith now, and he would bring your cousin with him."  
  
"Merry is coming here?" asked Pippin curiously, ceasing to weep and raising his face, still streaked with trails of tears, to Gandalf's bright countenance. "And Frodo and Sam....."  
  
"They are safe," repeated Gandalf firmly. "I myself took them on the backs of the Eagles from Orodruin to this place, and Aragorn is tending to them as we speak."  
  
At this news, Pippin's joy overran his regret, and with a surge of gratitude and affection, he threw his arms around Gandalf's neck and hugged tightly. "I can't see why you should concern yourself with such small and silly things as hobbits," he exclaimed wonderingly, "but I am very glad you do."  
  
Gandalf laughed loudly, and his heart rejoiced at the glimpse of the playful child Pippin had once been. "Do you call your kind 'silly,' when Frodo's courage has delivered us all, when Sam's loyalty, more steadfast than that of any Man, has kept that courage alight, when you and Merry reckoned your lives at such a little cost in comparison to the lives of others, and when your particular brand of friendship, my dear lad, is an unbreakable affection that is rare among many peoples, and nonexistent elsewhere?"  
  
Pippin had no words with which to answer such a speech, but tears welled up once more in his wide, brown eyes, and he eventually managed: "I only bestow it where it is well-deserved," and he buried his face once more in the silken robes.  
  
"I would not doubt it," answered the wizard softly, and he watched lovingly as Pippin's curls began to slide downwards with weariness, and soon the small hobbit was asleep once more. "Sleep well, Peregrin," Gandalf whispered, sliding the hobbit out of his lap and into the bed, and carefully wrapping the sheets around Pippin's shoulders. "I promise that you will awaken to a dawn the likes of which you have never seen." 


End file.
